Posted by Sebastian Little on Feb 16th 2016
What about that "Mountain of Cardboard?"
For many of us it's become second nature to purchase items online rather than picking them up at the store. Savings and convenience are most likely the chief reasons to shop online. For my customers at Great Infusions the items are probably simply unavailable to purchase at a local store. Whatever the reason, it is a reality that each purchase will result in a cardboard box and some packing material being manufactured and energy/resources being spent to deliver the item in one piece.
Today's article in the New York Times (see below) concentrates on cardboard boxes, however I would argue that the styrofoam stuffing/peanuts is probably an equal or even more serious issue. At least cardboard can be recycled...
At Great Infusions we practice the following strategies to reduce our own contribution to E-commerce waste:
- Re-use boxes that are shipped to us for outgoing shipments.
- Re-use peanuts and packing paper that are shipped to us for outgoing shipments.
- Only purchase starch based biodegradable packing peanuts.
- When buying boxes, check our source for over-run boxes. These are often printed with an unrelated brand or company name.
- Recycle all materials that we cannot re-use.
Using our resources to produce boxes and packing material and then to independently deliver each box to each individual does not seem sustainable as we now see groceries and other daily needs being added to the online mix. It's a little known fact that much of the cardboard we use is shipped to China to be recycled and used for shipping goods back to us as well as for our consumption of cardboard boxes. As the owner of an e-commerce business and as one who likes to shop online I will be following this issue and thinking of more ways to reduce my own impact...
Link to Story From New York Times:
